


A Dangerous Profession

by took_skye



Series: Living For the Night [24]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Drugs, F/M, Gen, Minor Violence, POV First Person, POV Male Character, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-26
Updated: 2011-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:28:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/took_skye/pseuds/took_skye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack goes to do a hit that proves more difficult than he originally planned.</p><p>~ Features Jack Hotchner in his 20s</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dangerous Profession

  
_"One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions, one is a conqueror; one kills everybody, one is a god." ~ Jean Rostand_

***///***

I know that Sydney Manning killed her father because he molested her. I understand that, that isn’t the crime that made me take the job. If that were her only crime I’d happily leave her be, I’d wish her well, but it isn’t. She's committed multiple murders of innocent people prior and subsequent to that. Massacres that she and her then boyfriend, Ray, committed for the seemingly sheer pleasure of it. Those crimes she must pay for and because I know she can’t stop, even after killing the man she’d always wanted, I’ve agreed to put a stop to her myself.

I look up in her direction and she quickly flicks her eyes away. I smile to myself as I wonder just how long she’ll do this dance before coming over.

She will come over, of that I’m certain. She’s seen my poorly hidden gun. Pair that with torn-up jeans, a muscle tee, and toughened leather jacket and I look like just the type of guy she needs right now. Dumb muscle who’ll give loyalty for sex. I don’t pretend to understand her inner workings, that’s something best left to those with years of life experience like Jason Gideon, but I do know enough to know how to get her to do as I want.

“Excuse me.” Her voice is sweet as any honey trap’s.

She wants to seem weak; she’ll stay that way, complimenting me, until she feels she knows just how to manipulate and control me.

I look up and smile at her. “Yeah?”

“Is that seat taken?” She points to the one beside me.

“No.”

“Can I sit?”

“Sure,” I shrug out.

She settles herself beside me as relaxed and pleasant as can be. Her legs go up between the seats in front of us, her skirt slips down, and she extends her hand out. “Name’s Sydney, but you can call me Syd.”

“Jack.”

“It’s a pleasure ta meet ya, Jack.”

“I’m sure. Syd.” I play it cocky to see what she does.

She laughs, touches my arm before letting out a content sigh.

“So, you a cop, Jack?”

I let my eyes narrow. “Why you think that?”

“Your gun,” she whispers low in my ear.

I give her a smirk and counter just as low. “I’m notta cop.”

“It’s a nice gun.”

“Thanks.”

“Is it for your job?”

I cross my eyes with hers and smirk. “Why you so interested in my gun, Syd?”

“I like guns.”

“Then maybe you should get one of your own.”

“Oh, I got one of my own. Ya wanna see it?” She asks suggestively.

“Sure.”

She’s psychopathic, not psychotic, so she won’t shoot me here in the middle of the train even if she wants to.

I watch her get up and go back to her previous seat to pull out a beat-up briefcase covered in stickers and duck tape from the overhead. She must’ve been on the run for longer than I thought. It’s something I make note of just like I do the clothing, candy, and booze stuffing the case she opens once reseated.

“It’s right…” she pauses for playful dramatics as her hand digs in and pulls the pistol out, “here.”

It’s an old-fashioned revolver, the type they use in Western movies, heavy and likely a bit too bulky for her. That’s good for me.

I smile over at her some. “Impressive.”

“It was my dad’s.”

I’m guessing, she killed him with it too.

“And now it’s yours.”

“Yes it is.” She lets silence fall as she tucks it back in the case and then stuffs the luggage above us. “So, where’d ya get yours?”

She asks from above so I’ll look up. So I’ll see up her shirt. See she’s not wearing anything underneath.

“The last guy my mom was fucking.”

Not a lie. It was Dr Reid’s once, but he gave it to me for protection. He doesn’t know where its real use comes in, but my mother does. She approves.

“Not your daddy?” Syd asks as she works her way back down to her seat, flask now in hand.

“No.”

“Where’s he?”

“Around.”

“Jail?” She guesses before a sip from the flask.

I shake my head. “Just…around.”

“Don’t get along?”

I pause to think how to answer. Even the truth is complicated when it comes to my father and I.

“We’re civil.”

The young woman sips and laughs. “So’s me and my daddy.”

She winks, thinking I killed my father. That’s fine, she doesn’t need to know the truth.

“So, where ya coming from, Jack?”

“Quaint Cove.”

“Heard it's ahelloffa place to do some damage.”

I give a slight chuckle. “It can be.”

She seems to breath in her own amusement before throwing an arm around me and bringing her face in close enough I can smell the last things she took into her mouth…blue-raspberry lollipop with a vodka chaser. “And where you gettin’ off, Jack?”

I shrug. “Don’t know, wherever.” Wherever the next stop leaves me after the job is over. “How about you?”

“Spokane.”

“What’s there?”

“My mom.”

“Family visit, huh?”

“Something like that,” Syd smirks. She’s not done taking revenge on her family for what happened in her childhood. She takes a few gulps from her flask before offering it to me.

I fake the sip wanting to stay clearheaded, but I'm still left with traces of the cool burning vodka on my lips.

The woman smiles as she takes the flask back before leaning in and tracing her tongue around my lips. “Mmm, tastes good, don’t it?” she teases before going to kiss me.

I kiss back, deepen it because I know that’s what she’s expecting.

“Wanna hang in my private car?” she asks.

I arch a brow as if in interest.

“All the really good shit’s there.”

“Sure.”

I can take her out then.

***

“Who’s the top bunk for?” I ask as I lay across the bottom one, examining the state she’s kept her car in.

Liquor bottles are strewn everywhere and it smells strongly of the filthiest bars in Quaint Cove. Perhaps Syd is spiraling without the recently incarcerated Ray? Maybe partying with other men she’s picked up and used up along the way?

She does her second snort of heroin in as many minutes before finishing off a spare bottle of Wild Turkey and heading over to me. “No one, just wanted the extra space.”

My gut tells me something’s wrong, but I can’t pinpoint it and exiting suddenly will only raise alarms.

She slips into the bunk beside me, kisses me as she starts to move her hands over my body. It’s less an overture than a way to size me up. She’s feeling for muscles and war wounds and finds both.

“What’s this?” She asks as her hands runs over the ribbed flesh on the right side of my stomach.

"A scar."

"From?"

“A beating I took when I was fifteen.”

She laughs some as she pulls up the corner of my shirt to get a better look. “More like a stabbing.”

“Beating. It was so bad my appendix burst and I needed surgery.”

“Daddy?”

“He had a hand.” The man wanted information on my father and, mistakenly, thought I’d know something.

“Aren’t fathers just terrible?”

“They can be.”

Sydney yawns, the heroin finally hitting her.

“You can sleep if you want.”

She shakes her head even as her eyes close.

She’s out before I get the chance to insist and it’s just moments later that I act. I roll over to press my weight onto her chest as I grab her mouth and pinch her nose…burking. It’s effective and rarely, if ever, leaves signs on the victim. Whoever finds her will assume overdose and that will be it.

I don’t watch as Syd wakes and struggles, fights, for air. It’s not a matter of not being able to, but of not wanting to risk her scratching up my face with her nails. I only look back when she stops moving, but I don’t relax my grip. I’ve done this enough times to know better than to let my guard down so easily. I look at her eyes, they’re wide and lifeless, and finally release a hand to feel for her jugular. Nothing. She’s gone. The job is done.

Carefully I shift out of the bunk and snatch the flask she shared with me, the only thing that might indicate I was there, and stuff it into my pocket. I head to the door, open it, and then freeze.

I’m staring down the barrel of Syd’s revolver and into the eyes of her not-so-incarcerated lover. There’s a moment that he smirks his upperhand…it happens just before he sees his beloved in the bed.

“Sy –“

He doesn’t even get the full syllable out before I grab for the gun and pull him into the room as I wrestle for it. Our bodies slam the door closed and feet knock bottles around. He gets off a shot that slices across my left forearm before shattering a glass whiskey bottle and burying itself in the wall. He shoves his weight against the arm and I give just enough to trip him up.

He stumbles towards the bunk and I fall in behind him, slamming his head off the metal frame of the top bunk. Kicking the backs of his knees he crumples, dazed and bleeding. My gun’s out and fired into the back of his head twice before he ever has time to recover.

So much for a clean and easy job.

The silence of murder falls over the room and seems to spread out as fast and harsh as the burning pain of the bullet wound. But, as quickly as the silence comes, it leaves. There’s an announcement of the approaching next stop from a boom-voiced employee outside the door and I know I don’t have a lot of time before things get messier.

I strip a pillow of its cheap cover and work it into a tourniquet. It’s not much, but it should hold until I can slip off the train. The booze bottles come in handy to cover the potential smells of this catastrophe by pouring out their contents by the door and using some as I might aftershave. Better to smell of booze than blood.

A quick check in the tiny mirror of the half-bath tells me I’m at least passable and I slip out leaving the Do Not Disturb sign on the door in hopes it’ll buy a few extra hours before they’re found.

I head out to the car where I originally met Sydney to grab her bag. I’m guessing Ray had been watching the whole time (perhaps it was their plan to roll me for cash, weapons, and a new ID for him?) so move to search for luggage that would match Syd’s. I find it in the back, same style, same stickers, with “RAY” carved into the side. I grab it and head off the train mixed in with the other passengers.

***

The motel has its own dangers, I’m sure, but its manager asks no questions of his newest customer even when paid with the bloodied money I give him.

The room is small, hot, and smells as much like death as I’m sure Syd and Ray’s private car does now. But I can spread out everything the killer couple had in their luggage along with the customary toiletries the motel gives and see what I can make of it all. Gin for cleaning the wound and a belt slipped over a tie for a better tourniquet.

I grab the phone in the room and dial. Two rings and she picks up.

“It’s done, but I need an extraction, I’ve already left enough of a trail.”

She sighs her laugh over the phone before asking my current location and promising to send someone shortly. I tell her to make sure they bring bleach.

Two and a half hours of slow bleeding later and there’s a knock at the door. Gun in hand I check before opening on a face that I’ve seen only a few times before, but know is friendly.

“Gina, right?”

“Right,” she slides into the room with two bottles of bleach in her hands and business in her eyes. “How’s the bleeding?”

“Stopped mostly, it’s only a flesh wound.”

“Sure, they all say that,” she sets the bleach down, kicks the door shut, and pushes me back to the bed. “Right before they go into shock.”

I sit when the backs of my legs hit the bed and let her remove the belt and tie to check the wound.

“See, not even bleeding anymore. I told you, I’m fine.”

“Shut up,” she mutters as she touches the seared flesh around the wound causing new blood to seep out as waves of pain and nausea wash over me.

I swallow hard on the third wave and start to pull my arm away. “I’m fine, I don’t need you poking around my wound unless you know what you’re doing which, clearly, you don’t.”

The woman stands straight and I damn near expect her to put her hands on her hips with the look she gives. “Are you always this shitty of a patient?”

“Yes,” I answer as I go to rewrap the gash. My lips start to form a smile despite myself. “It’s in my blood, I come from a long line of stubbornly poor patients.”

Gina smiles back as her eyes roll. “Well, if you bleed out it’s your own damn fault.”

“I won’t, it’s a grazing wound that needs two to three stitches at the most and I can do that when I get back home.”

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m an EMT so, yes, I do.”

“When you’re not killing people?”

I frown a touch. “When I'm not not killing people. Yes.”

“It still bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“Killing people.”

“When it doesn’t, I’ll stop.”

“That…” her confusion comes across her face even more than in her voice.

“Doesn’t make sense?” I offer to end her thought as I get up slowly and go to grab a still unopened bottle of rum from Ray’s case.

“Yeah.”

I smile softly as I break the seal, open the bottle, pour the sweetened liquor down my throat. (I'd rather be drunk than high, even when it comes to pain.) I set the bottle down on the bedside table before turning back to her. “I don’t do this for kicks or even out of some misguided loyalty to justice and the American way. I do it because it pays well and I’d like to think, in the long run, it saves the lives of those who are truly innocent.”

“You’re an unusual hit man, you know that, Jack?”

“Couldn’t tell you.” I smile at her. “Honestly, Gina, I don’t know any other hit men. Not even sure I want to.”

“You know me.”

“Well,” I can feel my face heat up a little, “that makes you a hit _woman_ , not man.”

“And you’re fine with meeting them?”

“That’s…” I shake my head and start to head past her. “Um…we should start cleaning up and get out of here.”

“Sure thing.”

***

We clean up and clean out the room before Gina tosses extra money to the manager for silence.

I’m wearing some of Ray’s clothes now, which smell as much like booze as mine did, but at least appear cleaner.

“You look like a boy who just hit puberty,” Gina comments as she settles into the driver's seat.

I slowly open my eyes and turn my head towards her as I relax in the passenger seat. “Excuse me?”

“There’s an inch between your shoes and the hem of those pants.” She starts the car and begins to head back to Quaint Cove.

“Ray was shorter than I am.”

“And smaller, I’m guessing.”

“Huh?” I look down at my lap, then shift some, turning bright red as Gina starts to laugh.

“Relax, Big Man, I was just teasing. I didn’t see anything.”

“I wasn’t…I just…” I can feel the heat of awkwardness climbing up my neck and into my face until there's nothing left to do but laugh from the nerves. “It was this or something from the girl’s luggage.”

“Nice little tube tops and jean skirts?”

“Pretty much.”

“Gotta say, I don’t see you being able to work that ensemble, Jack.”

“Well, not like you could, I’m sure.”

Gina’s brow lifts a touch as she glances from the road to me. “Was that a come-on?”

“More of a compliment.”

“Smart boy. You may just make it in this world after all.”

I smile, but say nothing.

***///***

 _"Is it so different from your own work? You take the lives of men and women, strong in the conviction that their deaths will improve the lots of those left behind. A minor evil for a greater good? We are the same." ~ Abu'l Nuquod, Assassin's Creed_


End file.
